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Monday, December 15, 2014

Roughly 11 Months ago, Peter and I went on a life changing trip to Ethiopia. During our time in Ethiopia my heart became completely torn apart for the people of Korah. It is a reality that most of us cannot even comprehend. For a quick refresher, Korah is the part of Addis Ababa where the poorest of the poor live. They're the outcasts of society and live in the trash dump. Most of the families living there suffer from diseases that society doesn't want to be bothered with - leprosy, HIV, TB. A lot of the women who live there are widowed. It's just an unbelievably difficult place for these people to be living in with over 130,000 people living in a pretty small area. This place just captured my heart and I've been burdened for Korah ever since. Fortunately through very generous friends and family I've been able to witness a lot of the families we met and prayed with while there find sponsorship.

As an example, these are some photos we took while walking around Korah 11 months ago. The conditions were terrible then, with people pretty much making homes out of anything they could find in the dump.

Just imagine for a moment, that is all that you have. A tiny little shack built out of garbage. But it provides shelter at least. Then imagine that tiny little bit of shelter that you had, being taken from you. It just makes me sick to even think about! These photos below are courtesy of Pastor Tesfaye's FB page. (Pastor Tesfaye grew up in Korah and is now devoting his life to serving the people of Korah. He's built an incredible ministry impacting these families!)

You see, the government came in and bulldozed a portion of Korah, leaving over 200 families completely homeless with absolutely NOTHING left. These families have zero resources so they've been left completely stranded. It just breaks me to even try and comprehend it.

Some of the families have been able to seek shelter at A Heart for Korah which is where Pastor Tesfaye works (he's pictured below sitting in the pink shirt and glasses). It's a tiny little compound stuffed full of people right now as Pastor Tesfaye works as quickly as he can to help all these people rebuild homes. I'm sure it is an incredible burden as they try to feed and house these people in such a tiny space.

So what can we do? Ordinary Hero has started a Korah Relief Fund to help with emergency aid to these families. Ordinary Hero is literally sending every dollar raised immediately over there to get these people help as fast as possible. I know this is already a season where we're all strapped for cash and it seems like every organization is trying to get year end contributions. Maybe just pray about it and see what you are lead to do. As Ordinary Hero says: Change the World for One and there's a lot of faces in this picture that could use some world changing right now.